movie was over and Eli brushed away some of the happy tears that always came when he watched About Time. The credits rolled. Eli marveled at all the names it took to put a movie together, wondered if a movie were filmed at CIS, would it take everyone in the building to make it? More, less? He listened to the credit songs play out, to the poignant silence that followed. It felt like the movie was sinking deeper into his psyche, into his bones.
After a moment, he heard the sounds of the city, still going on with its usual business, not privy to the way things here had ground to a halt. There was a bus stand outside of the school walls, and Eli could hear one of the men who always shouted the bus’s destination at passersby, as if hoping to convince them to change their plans and climb aboard.
The screen, projected from some absent teacher’s laptop, went back to the streaming service’s main menu, with recommendations for what to watch next. His stomach gurgled. Either he’d eaten too much popcorn, or the keys had not sat well with his system. He wished someone would come back up and select another movie.
* * *
The auditorium had fallen quietly into jittery legs and whispers. Another rumor had spread, this one much more credible, because it came from the students who were on the outside. The whispering worked its way from the front row toward the back of the room like so: a person who had just learned the information would announce the plan to a nearby friend, and that friend looked around her vicinity to find someone else to pass the knowledge on to. Finding none, she looked for someone she knew from class—perhaps that alluring redhead who’d one day lent a pencil?—and if no close acquaintance was visible within a two-row radius or so, she’d simply wait for the first person who made eye contact with her. She’d lean toward the eye-contact holder, beckoning them to do the same. Then, not caring that they’d never exchanged a word before, not caring that they were several seats apart, leaning across other strangers, she’d announce the information she had gleaned. The listener would then look around his vicinity for a friend, as would those who had been leaned over and heard the information, and in this way the news spread: the school had tried to break down the doors, but even the experts were at a loss. A locksmith van had arrived on campus, and after a few minutes of running around to all the exits, it had simply left again.
Here or there, someone had fallen asleep, and they whimpered like puppies with nightmares. Some people just stared off in the distance, as if recovering from some trauma, reliving some horror in their own minds, or fighting internally to stay away from its visions. Perhaps they were just bored.
Some, like Jordi Marcos, stewed in their anger. He knew they should have broken the chains right away. The fact that the tools were gone from the building as soon as the night began was lost on Jordi, and he thought that, somehow, if they’d acted when he said they should, something could have been done.
While his anger had initially been pointed at the administration, and at Peejay Singh, now it redirected itself toward Marisa Cuevas. How dare she throw this tantrum in his face and on his time. What gave her the right to step into lock-in night and steal the joy from all these people? Jordi, his brief glimmer of hope in taking the doors now cast aside, was unable to keep from focusing on the unfairness of it all. He crossed his arms and grunted as he shook his head. For now, he didn’t know what to do with his anger, how to have it come down on Marisa’s head.
* * *
While Jordi wasn’t the only one stewing, there were a few students who’d decided the best use of their time (other than lock-in activities, of course) was, aptly, to learn. They were in school, after all.
Omar Ng was one of them.
So the doors wouldn’t open and the decathlon was doomed, what with many of the events scheduled for the outdoors. However, Omar’s first reaction wasn’t disappointment. Rather, as he absorbed the information and looked across the room at where Peejay sat ensconced in a beam of light from an unreasonably bright bulb overhead, Omar felt a tug of excitement